


Kinktober: 2018

by thesnowyswan



Series: Kinktober: 2018 [4]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: 1939 war sweethearts, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, alternate get together, just like heaven au...sort of, loose bbc bodyguard adaption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-02 14:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16307372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesnowyswan/pseuds/thesnowyswan
Summary: My assorted Kinktober: 2018 stories not large enough to be separated out.





	1. επαφή

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 15\. ~~Forniphilia (Human Furniture) | Overstimulation | Intercrural Sex |~~ **Uniforms**
> 
> Robert is an MP fighting for an Anti-Terrorism bill, Aaron is his PPO. (A loose BBC Bodyguard adaption, so maybe spoilers?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed a break between the massive stories I have planned for Kinktober (one left!), so I figured I'd do a little mini-one instead, but somehow, it still ended up being an AU. This was not my intent for this year, but we're going with it.
> 
> If you haven't see the show, there is one small instance of violence (PTSD-related), I've tried to make it small and as easy to deal with as possible but if that's triggering for you, please reconsider reading this story.
> 
> επαφή is Greek for touch/physical contact.

“I’m not the Queen, you can touch me, y’know.”

Aaron sees the tremor in Robert’s hand as he holds his glass of whiskey, putting it on the bar and turning himself into Aaron. His fingers are covered in dried blood. Not his, of course, his driver's; shot in the head through ‘bulletproof’ glass. As Robert’s PPO, his police protection officer, Aaron did the only thing he knew how to; he threw himself into the driver’s seat and he got them the hell out of the way.

Robert is the Yorkshire MP, and with a strong stance on anti-terrorism and organised crime, he’s an open target, particularly as he is in direct opposition with the Prime Minister, his ex-wife, Chrissie White. She’s sliding in behind the party line that people’s privacy cannot be violated, the individual prioritised over the many. And people want to believe it. It doesn’t slow Robert down though. He’s pushing harder and harder to be seen, to get his message out there: ‘how many atrocities will it take until we learn?’

This one might be one too many.

Aaron slides the glass away from Robert, who tips his face down to smell whatever traces of aftershave Aaron has left on. Something cheap, it’s just for the show of doing his job. He stands, he guards, he makes sure Robert makes it out of things like this.

Everything about Robert is screaming out: _touch me_. _Comfort me_.

Aaron doesn’t know if he can do that. He’s just as shaken, a friend of his from his army days was the shooter, putting one last bullet in his head rather than being taken.

Robert’s mouth is hovering so close to his, that final tipping point where if Aaron does nothing he’ll be embarrassed and hurt and pull away from him.

Aaron can’t let that happen. He closes the gap between them, and Robert gasps under it like he wasn’t expecting Aaron to actually give in. His hands are strong on Aaron’s arms, pulling him in close.

It’s all twisted up because Aaron feels like he’s the one being coaxed out, made to feel safe. He takes a difficult step back, to give them both the space to think, “You need to wash the blood off.”

Robert frowns, but then looks at his hands.

“I’ll wait outside the door,” Aaron says, but Robert shakes his head.

“Come inside. Please.”

Aaron tries to get a read on Robert’s emotions. He’s scared, that much is true, his fear softening that usually whip-like tongue, but he isn’t fragile. This won’t break him. It will reform as a crack inside him, never really healing, but reminding him of this moment. This moment of _almost_.

They go into the bathroom and Aaron turns his back as Robert undresses, eyes down so that he can’t see him in the mirror as the water starts and the steam rises. It gets so hot that Aaron has to take off his suit jacket and he lies it on top of the toilet seat. His tie and shirt are wrinkled from the day’s events, but still in place. He clasps his right hand over his left wrist and lets them hang in front of himself until Robert is done, a tap on his shoulder and he turns around to Robert in a fluffy white robe.

Aaron checks the bedroom, Robert lurking in the doorway until Aaron gives him a nod: all clear.

He’s about to leave when Robert catches him, hand pressed on his belly as he goes to pass him.

Robert’s head is bowed, his silence is deafening in the absence of what Aaron knows him to be like. Always digging at him for more information, about his life, his service, the bomb crisis he averted just days before he became Robert’s PPO.

Aaron puts his hand over Robert’s and rubs along it up to his wrist, curling his fingers around it to take it away. Only he turns his body back, back into Robert’s space and this time he doesn’t stop. He kisses him and takes him to the bed until the backs of Robert's knees hit it and he falls down to sit on it, Aaron standing over him as he scoots further back. Aaron unbuckles his belt, undoes his trousers and Robert parts his robe and his thighs enough for Aaron to know that he is naked under it before he welcomes the weight of Aaron on his body.

Robert clutches at his back like he’s a drowning man holding onto a life raft. Aaron isn’t averse to the pain, so he keeps his hand tight on both of their cocks, rubbing them together as Robert sighs and tips his head back, exposing his throat. Aaron bites at it, scores it with his beard and Robert loosens his grip to grab the back of his head with one hand, the other pushing down the back of his trousers to hold his arse.

“More,” Robert whispers, demands, and Aaron pushes his hips down, thrusting himself into his hold.

Green eyes catch his, and it’s not something they can hide behind anymore. Robert lets his head go and spits on his hand to cover what Aaron can't and to help ease the way. Everything is stronger with Robert helping. The tingle starts in his balls, but he tries to push it back, fights to see Robert arching his back, licking his lips, the belt of his robe loosening so that Aaron can see the freckles dotting his chest and the flatness of his nipples.

Aaron knows when Robert starts to truly let go, his quietness giving way to increasingly louder moans that he tries to lose in kissing Aaron’s chest, ignoring the fact he hasn’t even unbuttoned his shirt. The hand on his arse pinches him hard, so hard it makes it impossible for him to move as Robert twitches and spills come up on his belly. Aaron keeps going, pulling Robert through it and finally feeling it take hold inside him as his come mixes in with Robert’s.

Almost immediately after, Robert gets up and goes to the bathroom. Aaron lets himself take three breaths before he tucks himself away and does up his trousers.

Robert comes back out, looking unsure, Aaron’s suit jacket in his hands. Aaron takes it gently from him and notices that his fingers were twisted up in it.

“Aaron.”

It’s quiet and unsure.

Aaron nods, “I’ll be outside, sir.”

 

 

Robert’s reaction isn’t new to him, Aaron has seen it before, done it himself, it’s what you do to feel alive. Touch and be touched. Perversely, Aaron feels better for it. Robert’s reaction was normal and Aaron was able to help him.

He just isn’t expecting what comes after. Another brief encounter on the desk in Robert’s hotel room, cocks in hand again as Robert more forcibly takes from Aaron than the last time. He isn’t bound up with fear or retribution; he wants and he takes, Aaron barely able to hold on as he bites his lip and comes on Robert’s shirt. Robert smiles like it’s a victory, his fingers touching the wetness before he kisses Aaron and lets him go again.

It continues still with a kiss, this time in the toilets on the way to a speaking event and it ends in a vow of belief that no harm will ever come to Robert while Aaron is with him. It’s becoming a rabbit hole with no end, the demands on his time outside of his working hours are increasing, and Aaron could say no, it’s completely inappropriate for them to be doing this, but when Robert slips his hand inside his own trousers for _him_ , hand moving much too slowly to feel anything other than a tease, Aaron can’t stop himself.

 _I’m just the hired help_.

Robert sighs just like he does when Aaron thumbs the head of his cock.

 _I’m meant to keep you safe_.

Robert pushes his trousers down and kicks them off with his shoes, his dick swaying heavily. Aaron wonders what it would be like if they weren’t this. Just two blokes in a room. Robert keeps going, loosening his tie, unbuttoning his shirt.

Aaron strides over to him, Robert’s smile warm and affectionate as he lets Aaron kiss him and take him back to the bed.

 

 

 

Robert has him organise an off the books trip.

“I only trust you, Aaron.”

Aaron feels that like a weight on his chest. He doesn’t want to do it, he doesn’t want to expose Robert to anything he can’t have complete control of, or back up for. But he does it because Robert asked him to.

It’s a fool’s errand, he’s sure of it because when Robert asks him to stay in the car, he fights every single instinct and judgement he has and he does.

It wasn’t so long ago that Aaron hated Robert or at least the very idea of him and the rest of his ilk. People in suits who just ordered people like him to war. Now he’s in his bed, kissing him, touching him, fucking him.

Robert comes back in one piece with a folder that he puts in the back and he sits in the front with Aaron. It’s not protocol, and Aaron goes to say otherwise, but Robert takes his hand and gives it a squeeze.

They drive back to the hotel, Robert doesn’t even bother with pleasantries, he just holds his room door open for Aaron to walk through it.

“People might ask questions,” Aaron points out.

“That I came back to my hotel and my PPO came inside my room?”

Robert isn’t out, but there are those who know. People who could make it difficult for him.

Aaron makes a face and gestures to himself, he’s in his plain clothes; jeans, jumper, jacket. Not one stitch of a uniform in sight.

“We work together, Aaron, we’re friendly, people won’t question it,” Robert tries to ease Aaron’s objections, but they’re still there. “I want you here and that’s final.”

“Do you?” He asks, walking further into the room.

Robert frowns, “I do.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Aaron takes off his jacket, and Robert mimics by taking off his. They stand there, trading item of clothing for item of clothing. It’s the first time Robert has ever seen his scars properly. It’s obvious that he is quietly curious, and Aaron doesn’t stop him from walking around him to see the full extent of them. Some are IED-related, shrapnel, _war_ -related, but some, some are self-inflicted. Aaron doesn’t tell him that or which.

Robert hugs himself loosely to Aaron’s back, his chest broad and encompassing of Aaron’s shoulders, and he presses his cheek to the side of Aaron’s head, “Can I—?”

He nods, and he’s left alone, a chill trailing up his spine as he turns to see Robert with essentials in his hands.

“Kneel on the settee for me,” Robert tells him, and Aaron cups his own cock up and to the side, the excitement of the question and now Robert’s guidance working its way through his system like a drug.

Aaron expects fingers on his arse, but Robert pulls him back, turning his face so that when Robert leans down they kiss awkwardly, Robert’s growing erection pressing into the middle of his back.

They keep kissing, so Aaron strokes himself hard, hissing against Robert’s mouth and he’s let go.

Robert grazes his back with gentle fingertips, careful of the terrain, softest over the indents of his scars. With a push, Aaron goes forward, hands on the back of the settee. Robert makes a show of kissing his back, from the top of his spine to the base as he uncaps the lube in the quiet of the room and cold fingers press in on Aaron.

He hangs his head and relaxes, his cockhead red and slick when he opens his eyes to look at himself, Robert’s pale thighs in the gap between his.

When Robert breaches him, Aaron curls and digs his fingers into the fabric. It’s been so long since he’s done this. Even had someone at his back for longer than a few seconds, and Robert covers his, his fingers lacing together with his to stop him from gripping so hard.

“Aaron—” Robert breathes into his ear. It’s pure need. He needs something from Aaron, wants it from him now.

Robert’s first proper thrust feels like Aaron is being rearranged, he chokes out a cry and squeezes Robert’s fingers. It eases, Robert going slower, letting one of his hands go so that he can wrap his hand around Aaron’s cock to keep him hard. Aaron almost headbutts him when he does and gets a chuckle against his shoulder for it.

“So this is how I find out all your secrets then?” Robert jokes, his own breathing changes, becomes more shallow.

“I ain’t got no secrets.”

“Everyone’s got secrets, Aaron.”

Aaron licks his lips, his body tingling with heavy pleasure as he moans, and he turns his face for another kiss. He gets it and then lets his head drop again.

“I don’t,” He says as he wipes his mouth on the settee back, biting it with his teeth as Robert pushes into him harder again, hand letting go of his cock and pinching his hip to pull him back. He lets the settee go with a shocked cry when Robert presses his hips down and it zaps inside Aaron so hard his vision almost whites out around the edges.

He’s muttering ‘oh, god’ and Robert keeps thrusting in on that one spot, Aaron sees his cock dribbling thickly between his legs as he gasps, everything too much and not enough.

“Robert—” Aaron’s moans descend into gibberish and Robert’s groans feel distant in his ear, so he flexes his fingers and focuses on that. The points in which they’re connected that isn’t the pleasure that threatens to consume him and spit him out.

Everything coalesces at once, Robert’s fingers on him, the feel of the velvet under his knees, his cock slapping up against his belly, and then Robert’s fingers that hold his hand tighter as he breaks apart. Aaron’s blood roars in his ears as his body shakes, his cock feeling solidly sensitive, so much so that when Robert tries to tease the come out of him, he has to slap him away with a ‘don’t’.

He’s still twitching and leaking a bit when Robert cries out against his neck, plastered down on him with his arms wrapped around Aaron’s waist.

 

Robert, still buried inside him, guides them down onto the settee so that Aaron is facing the back of it, embraced by the long line of Robert’s body so that he doesn’t fall off.

 

 

 

Aaron doesn’t mean to fall asleep.

He doesn’t open his eyes. He just takes the hand on his arm and he tries to crush it in his grip as he rolls, knocking them both onto the floor.

He gets his hands around their neck when he feels hands on his, but it’s words that stop him. Words penetrate that his brain.

“Aaron. Aaron, please. Stop.”

They’re hoarse, and Aaron looks down. Robert is under him, wild eyed and dishevelled. _Afraid_.

He lets him go, gets up and walks to their adjoining room door. It’s been useless for weeks, but he goes through it and then locks it. He slides down the back of the door, hugs his knees to his chest and tries to forget.

 

 

 

They don’t speak for the rest of the night, but Aaron unlocks the door and Robert is on the other side in the living room, sorting out his briefcase, Aaron’s come stain still stark on the green velvet.

“I—“ _‘m sorry_ , but it’s not enough.

Robert looks at him, his eyes soft. Aaron can see that he’s already forgiven, and he’s so grateful, but he’s also angry at Robert that he would do so so easily.

“I know you didn’t mean to do it, but you did. You need help,” Robert tells him as he shuffles his papers.

Aaron starts to shake his head, but Robert looks at him, “Aaron, you—need to talk to someone. About before.”

War, before the war, before he had any of the scars that littered his body.

“Let me help you.”

He sees Robert coming towards him, hand outstretched like Aaron is an animal that needs to pick up his scent to feel safe.

If he wants this, wants Robert, he has to do it, doesn't he?

Aaron settles for: “Are you alright?”

There’s a flash of disappointment in Robert’s face. It’s not no, so Robert nods, “I’m fine.”

Aaron smooths down his tie, “Then let’s begin the day, sir.”

 

 

 

Robert has another big speech to make, and this time it’s a big deal. The shooting, his continued pressing of the new Anti-Terrorism bill, he’s getting his face out there for people to see. Aaron doesn’t like it and Robert knows that.

It’s why he’s so shocked when Robert tells him he’s fired.

“What?”

“After this I don’t want you as my PPO,” Robert checks his pockets for everything he needs.

Aaron feels blindsided, even if he understands, “But—”

Robert takes Aaron’s hand, and Aaron looks down at it and then at him.

“I want you to heal, and I want you to stand by my side because you choose to be, not because you have to be.”

Robert squeezes his fingers and then he heads out to give his speech.

 

 

The explosion is loud, it rips through Aaron’s eardrums as he runs towards the stage. He’s knocked back, but he gets up. He can see Robert in the debris. He doesn’t bother calling for him. He just gets himself up there, touching Robert’s face, willing his eyes to open. Laying next to him when he doesn’t wake up.

 

 

 

 

The Prime Minister makes a show of going to her ex-husband’s side. He’s still in a coma because of the blast. She rips into Aaron and questions what he’s good for and he spits venom back at her, “Maybe if you had backed him, he wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Chrissie’s mouth gapes, but several officials stop her from slapping him across the face, and instead, she goes to comfort Robert’s sister like a dutiful wife would.

Aaron doesn’t care. He just wants Robert back.

 

 

 

The cover-up is outstanding. Chrissie’s son, by a man before Robert, had raped a woman and almost murdered his own grandfather. She covered it up. Her sister’s drug addiction, she covered up. Her own rampant alcoholism an open secret for anyone to see.

Robert knew about it all.

Which means, at best, he knew Chrissie would never back him if it got out. Aaron thinks he should have dragged her. Her performance at the hospital whenever she’s there is award-winning. She also refuses to let Aaron on the ward with Robert, and without telling her that they were shagging, there’s nothing he can do.

Things start happening and doctors filter down the hallway to Robert’s room. Aaron is still on the other side of the double doors.

Robert’s sister, Victoria, opens one of the doors for him. Aaron just stares at her.

“You were with him, right? _Are_ with him?”

Aaron’s throat closes up, “Yeah.”

“C’mon. He’ll be wanting to see you then, won’t he?”

When Chrissie sees him, she gets up, but Victoria holds onto Aaron’s arm and makes him sit with her. Not like how she’s been, holding onto Chrissie, as if she held all the answers.

As if Victoria knows Chrissie wants to say something, she turns to her, “Robert wants the people who love him around him, not the ones trying to bury him.”

Chrissie splutters at the accusation, “I would never—”

“Don’t lie, Chrissie,” Victoria gets up, her hand gesturing for Aaron to stay back. “You never liked that Robert wouldn’t sing your tune after the divorce. You got all the sympathy, oh, poor Chrissie, being cheated on—”

“I didn’t want anyone’s _pity_.”

“And that’s it, ain’t it? You’re still the cheated on ex-wife, and Robert is once again the rising star. Get over yourself, _Christine_. You’re the bloody Prime Minister. His idea is bloody good, and if you weren’t such a cow you’d see that.” Victoria lets out a breath, “You ain’t welcome here anymore. You and Robert got divorced.”

Chrissie scoffs, “And he is?”

Aaron watches it click.

“You’re shagging him.”

He keeps his mouth shut, and Chrissie closes her eyes and looks up, “My ex-husband once again shagging the help.”

Victoria raises up her arm, pointing to the doors, “ _Get out_.”

 

 

 

It all gets released to the press, Chrissie is thrown out of the cabinet. A vote for new party leader is to happen within the hour.

Robert still being in his coma has the news outlets asking for thoughts and prays for him in this difficult time. Aaron brings Vic tea and ignores it all.

“They would have voted him to be Prime Minister if he was awake,” Victoria tells him as she accepts her tea.

It’s true. Robert has that right level of charisma and charm. His platform is strong and inclusive for the working class, cultural diversity, the disabled and LGBTQIA+. He would have been a great Prime Minister.

He misses the vote and Nicola King is the next Prime Minister of Great Britain.

 

 

 

Days turn into nights, turn into weeks. Victoria refuses to give up hope, even when their brother, Andy, arrives to see Robert.

Aaron stays out of it, but it’s his night to be alone with Robert. They take it in shifts and it’s strange how much he’s gotten to know him without ever having to ask him a thing. He was a quiet child, studious, soft-hearted, a rowdy teen like most, and he proved that he had a knack for politics, much to his father’s dismay. His sexuality helped even less, but Robert fought to get here under his own steam. A member of Parliament. Not bad for a farmer’s son from the Dales.

“See, that’s why you have to wake up, Robert, people are counting on you.” _I’m counting on you_.

His face is pale and lifeless, his bruises have faded so he mostly looks like he’s sleeping. Aaron cuddles Robert’s hand between his own.

“I ain’t ready to lose ya, okay, I ain’t, so, c’mon.”

Aaron uses their joined hands to wipe his face and he opens his eyes to Robert’s chest lurching, his body fighting his breathing tube.

“Somebody!” He lets Robert’s hand go, “We need help!”

 

 

 

Robert is sitting in a wheelchair outside, recuperating. He’s been up a couple of days and Aaron is standing in front of him to say goodbye.

“They found a place for me at a clinic. Funny that,” He tries to smile, but it hurts.

Robert nods, his smile pained too, “Really funny.”

“We heal, then we do this,” Aaron tells him as he crouches down.

Robert reaches his hand out and Aaron laces their fingers together, “We heal, we do this.”

“See you soon,” Aaron kisses Robert’s forehead, then his mouth.

Their fingers let go, but their hearts don’t.

 

 

 

Six months later, there is another election, and Robert wins by a landslide. He welcomes Aaron home from the centre at Number 10.

“Still not the queen then?” Aaron asks as he’s looking around.

Robert frowns and then laughs, “Of course not.”

“It’s just you said that because I could touch you.”

They both look at each other, Robert nods, “You can touch me now.”

 


	2. Summer of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [16. ~~Nipple Play~~ | **Frottage** | ~~Body Worship | Sixty-nine~~ ]
> 
> It's the Summer of 1939, just prior to the beginning of World War Two, and Robert's dad enlists some help on the farm due to his son's weakened health.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er, some period homo/biphobia? I guess? All the conscription stuff is true, I'm not entirely sure about when in May it was for the 20-22 year-olds, but it is a thing.

_ 14th June 1939 _

“Who are you then?” Robert scowls. He resents the fact that his father had to bring in anyone to help on the farm, but with the conscription of 20 to 22-year-olds into 6 months of service in the army this past May, they need the help. Unlike his brother, Andy, Robert has asthma, a weakness in his chest, that prevents him from being enlisted. Still, summer is better for him, he feels stronger, breathes easier, and while he can’t do it all, he can do enough so that _he_ doesn’t need to be here.

He barely looks eighteen, dark hair, pimpled, a matching scowl on his face, “Aaron Dingle.”

“Dingle,” Robert scoffs, “Of course.”

Whippet thin, he’s barely better off in weight than Robert. Robert gets up and walks out of the kitchen where Aaron presented himself for Robert’s instruction. They’re heading out to the barn, some of the lambs need feeding, they won’t take off their mum’s teat. It’s one of Robert’s favourite jobs, but the wool can sometimes irritate his chest.

He shows Aaron where everything is, and he goes to leave him with it.

“You don’t look sick.”

Robert turns around as Aaron is grabbing one of the lambs. He doesn’t take up the bottle for the feed, so Robert huffs and gets it himself, popping the artificial teat inside the lamb’s mouth. They work together to get all the little ones fed and it takes half the time it would take Robert to do it by himself.

Aaron strokes one of the lambs that shakes its tail next to him, trying to get the feeling of people off of it.

No thank yous are exchanged, but Robert nods his head and Aaron nods back.

 

_ 3rd September 1939 _

 

Robert reads on the first of the month that the country is at war with Germany. On the third of it, that men aged eighteen to forty-one who had registered for service will now be conscripted into the army.

He heads outside to where Aaron is mending one of the fences that one of the cows broke butting up against it, paper in his hand.

Aaron looks at it, and then him. He casts his eyes down and back to his task.

 

_ 22nd July 1939 _

 

“Oh, for—” Robert sits on a bale of hay in the stables as Aaron ties up one of the horses for her brush down and the checking of her shoes.

“You wanna do it, you do it, Robert,” Aaron punts back. He’s clearly had enough of Robert’s commentary this morning. It’s what they do now. Aaron goes around the farm ‘doing’ things and Robert tells him what to do.

“She doesn’t like that stall,” Robert goes to take her reins to guide her out when Aaron grabs his wrist before he reaches her.

“Leave it, will ya?”

“Aaron—” Robert grunts and he ends up hitting Aaron in the face by accident as he tries to throw him off, “Sor—”

Aaron thumps him back.

Robert wipes his mouth, the blood fresh and red on his knuckles.

“Robert.”

Aaron looks at him, distraught, hands up at Robert’s chest.

He isn’t sorry he hit Robert, he’s sorry for whatever he might have set off in Robert’s weak body. Robert hates that, the implied pity. He shoves Aaron back with two hands on his shoulders.

They stagger between the stalls, and Robert trips onto the floor, but it doesn’t stop him, he grabs the leg of Aaron’s trousers and pulls him down, crawling so that he can get over him and they fight ineffectually among the discarded straw.

“Stop it, Robert, you’ll get ill,” Aaron warns him, trying to catch his wrists.

Robert ignores him, “Fight back.”

Aaron lets him punch him in the chest, a blow that might have disarmed Robert, and he hates it. He stops, sits on Aaron’s hips and breathes as deeply as he can because even something as stupid as this has him almost clutching at his chest.

“Breathe, Rob, alright? Breathe,” Aaron’s hand touches his chest where he’s leaned over him, Robert watches as it rises and falls against his breastbone.

Robert has always been turned by a pretty head. Blondes, brunettes, he has a taste for them all, not even his weak chest stopped him losing his virginity well before now. His deepest secret, his greatest shame is that it’s not just women. That the blue of Aaron’s eyes, the curve of his mouth when he tells Robert dirty jokes hits the same spot as a pretty girl in a nice dress.

Aaron’s hand slides down the valley of his sternum, down over his stomach till it’s low over his belly button. Robert can feel that touch like fire and it burns to create a reaction. He throws himself off Aaron, who looks at him with bewildered eyes.

“I’m fine, I’m not a fucking child,” Robert spits out, and Aaron sits up on the floor.

He storms out back to the house and puts the kettle onto the stove.

 

 

 

Aaron is still tending the horses when Robert goes back out there.

He doesn’t say anything when Robert puts the cup of tea down for him, and nothing still when Robert pushes him up against the wooden panel next to the hay bales.

He nudges his nose against Aaron’s, and when he doesn’t get hit again, he presses in further, touching his lips to Aaron's once, barely pulling away when he isn’t pushed off. Robert opens his eyes enough to see Aaron’s are closed and he dives back in, lips tight on Aaron’s and hands holding his face so that he can’t run away. 

Slowly, Aaron opens up, opens his mouth and lets his tongue curl against Robert’s, and the sound of it, the way their lips touch and their breaths are cut short, slides into Robert’s belly like welcomed heat this time.

Aaron’s hands push at his suspenders, knocking them off his shoulders, but Robert ignores them beyond letting them fall off his arms before putting his hands back on Aaron's face, pushing his hips forward into his, sliding his knee between Aaron's legs and finally letting his face go to score down his back.

“We can’t,” Aaron mutters, his mouth tearing from his, “We can’t.”

Robert knows he’s right, they can’t. But he can’t stop, “ _I_ can’t.”

Aaron looks at him with knowing eyes, a recognition of the fact that in some way, they are the same. He pulls Robert’s hips in as tight as he can and he rocks his groin against Robert’s. They bump into each other and it’s awkward, but Robert helps by grabbing Aaron’s thigh, hiking it up, and they slide more satisfyingly against each other. They unbalance themselves and stumble back into the panel, more focused on chasing that spark that they get when their cocks hit each other just right and their mouths keep each other slick and wanting.

It's different to when Robert is alone, by himself, or even with one of the girls from the village. Aaron groans thickly in his ear and he’s hard in all the places that a man should be. It spurs him on, continually trying to catch Aaron in such a way that he gives up one of those sounds, his fingers sliding up Robert’s back to dig into his shoulders as he closes his eyes and leans his head back on the wood.

Robert feels thick and swollen, his cock pressing on the seam of his trousers and he finds pushing into that gets his blood rushing hotter, dragging heavier whines out of him that he’s forced to hide in Aaron’s neck. Aaron pulls on his hair, head drawn back up for another kiss as he bucks his hips in a counterpoint to Robert’s.

“Yes,” He hisses, and Aaron nods.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Robert tries to control his breathing, but it gets away from him, and it feels sore inside his chest, but he ignores it.

He also realises that Aaron is breathing with him. Longer, slower breaths as he rocks, all Robert has to do is follow him. It slows them down, their grinding less frantic, Robert gets both his hands down on Aaron’s arse, Aaron hooking his leg around Robert’s of his own accord as they move together.

Robert comes with a strangled cry, his lips open and wet as they hover over Aaron’s, soaking the inside of his trousers as he jerks and tries to keep going for him. Aaron tips his head back when he comes, biting his lip as he trembles. Robert can feel it in how his bum twitches, muscles seized tight and then relaxing.

 

 

“Did you always know?” Robert asks as they sit on the floor, backs leaning against the bale again. Robert feels sticky and in need of a bath, but he isn’t willing to move.

Aaron glares at him. They can do what they did, but they can’t talk about it. Not here, not ever. It leaves Robert feeling cold.

Aaron kicks one of the feed buckets and looks over at him, “No. Did you?”

Robert considers it, about the way he’s looked at others over the years, “Yeah.”

 

_ 3rd September 1939 _

 

“When do you leave?” Robert asks, scuffing his feet. They’re in the stables again, Aaron trying to get everything done.

“Six days, I’ll sort everything before I go with your dad.”

“ _Aaron_.”

Aaron looks up at him from where he’s got two sacks in his hands, “What do you want me to say, Robert? We’re at war and I have to serve my country.”

 

_ 28th July 1939 _

 

Aaron has been avoiding him for about a week now. Ever since their…encounter. If anyone else has noticed it, they don’t mention it, but Robert does. He feels it in his bones.

“You can’t avoid me forever,” He says as Aaron finishes for the day and is cleaning up in one of the troughs outside, washing his hands free of grime.

“Wanna bet?” Aaron mutters, but Robert tries to stop him from leaving. “Leave it, Robert.”

“No.”

“Why? What could possibly happen here?” Aaron’s eyes plead with him. They’re two men. What would they do, where would they go?

“I don’t care,” Robert says, and even he loathes his own naiveté.

Aaron grabs his arm, hard, hard enough to hurt and gives him a shake, “Leave it _be_ , Robert.”

Robert takes the risk, out in the open, and grabs Aaron’s face for a kiss. He feels Aaron’s stubble prickle his mouth, rough and defined, he embraces it. The tender softness of Aaron’s lips, he crows inside for.

Aaron’s hands hesitate on his arms before they squeeze and pull him in.

Robert lets him go after he’s sure Aaron is thoroughly kissed, his own chest feeling the burn of stolen breath.

Aaron looks so sad, heartbroken even, and Robert can’t bear it, so he kisses him again.

“It won’t end well,” Aaron tells him, and Robert feels his heart crack because Aaron is probably right.

“I don’t care.”

 

 

 

Robert doesn’t ask how Aaron knows a tub of Vaseline will work, but he lets Aaron show him what to do. They’re in the barn now, a picnic blanket spread on the floor, clothes strewn about, Robert watches Aaron shuffle down, his legs spread for Robert between them.

Everything is tighter. It’s harder for him to hold onto his sense of himself when Aaron grunts, tilting his hips up, hand on his cock, stroking himself hard again. Robert leans down and covers him, forces Aaron to take away his hand as Robert smothers him with his body as he rocks, thrusting back and forth. Aaron’s fingers press into his sides and his moans peter out into cries. Robert breathes, or he tries to. Tries to remember how Aaron did it before, but it’s all mixed up in this feeling he has coiling at the base of his spine and zooming into his balls. He chases after that harder than anything else, losing himself in fucking Aaron, Aaron’s back sliding against the blanket as his legs poorly wrap around Robert’s hips and then slide down his thighs as he licks his lips and scratches welts up on Robert’s skin.

Robert pushes back Aaron’s hair off his forehead, free of its usual Brylcreem because of his own sweat, it’s curling up of its volition. He presses his thumbs against Aaron’s cheeks to get him to open his eyes. He does, and they look at each other, Aaron letting go of one of side of Robert’s waist to hold one side of his face.

He loses himself balls deep inside Aaron, his hips wedged against his arse, Aaron wetting his own belly and it all makes perfect sense.

_It’s me, it’s you, it’s us._

For what it’s worth that is.

 

_ 8th September 1939 _

 

The men are being shipped off to basic training.

People look at Robert with a mix of pity and jealousy. They don’t know that he’s wished and prayed that he could reverse his own weakness and stand by Aaron’s side, to help him fight what is to come. But he never will. He’d die long before he ever had to face any Nazis.

Aaron looks so handsome, clean shaven, and in his uniform, his hair cut ready. Some of the local girls want to be his sweetheart, keep trying to catch his eye, but they never will.

His family runs a pub further into the village and Robert is invited to Aaron’s leaving do.

He doesn’t want to go, but he doesn’t know when he’ll see him otherwise.

He guesses he shouldn’t have doubted. Aaron sees him as he comes through the door and yanks him off to one side with a hiss, “What are you doin’ here?”

“I was invited,” Robert says quietly. He can see another one of those girls still staring and he feels his heart shrivel at the thought of it.

“Wait for me outside, yeah?” Aaron says harshly before he shoves Robert out of the pub.

 

 

 

It feels like an eon before Aaron comes outside by himself and he lights a cigarette before he realises and puts it out. They’ve always bugged Robert’s chest.

“You—ah,” Robert wills himself to say the words, “You should find a nice girl.”

Aaron looks at him, his face completely void of understanding.

“To wait for you.”

He understands then and he licks his lips and nods, his face turning angry, “I don’t want a nice girl to wait for me, Robert.”

“Why not? It’s what everyone wants. A sweetheart,” Robert picks at a piece of lint on his trousers. His nice ones for special occasions.

“I love _you_ ,” Aaron tells him. It’s clear he didn’t mean to tell him, but he can’t take it back.

Robert feels his heart soar, “I’d wait for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” He smiles, and Aaron pulls him in by the sleeveless jumper vest he’s wearing as Robert tells him, “I love you too.”

He wraps his arms around Aaron’s shoulders and buries his nose in his collar, trying to soak up the last remnants of him before he’s gone.

“Fight the war,” He whispers, “but come home. Come home to me.”

Aaron wraps his arms around Robert’s waist.

“I will. _I will_.”


	3. Echoes of Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 17\. **Masturbation** ~~| Seduction | Collaring | Orgasm Denial~~
> 
>  
> 
> _This is where the agents start to sweat, they don’t know what to say. They want to sell, but Aaron never makes it easy for them. He pushes one of the glasses on the counter, the sound scraping in the quiet._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Uh,” She says, “Well, it’s haunted.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the last non-planned idea I had, so I don't know what I'll get done after this, but you can blame rustandruin 100% for the general approximation of this. There was a conversation, ideas were thrown, I was momentarily inspired by Just Like Heaven. Is that the movie? IDK.
> 
> Warnings: unintended voyeurism/is it a three-way if one person is there by accident?

It’s a new real estate agent, Aaron notices, as she shows around another man Aaron’s flat. Well, his house. He owns both the flats in what was The Mill and is now a two-flat conversion.

The man asks about the price, and when she gives it to him, he frowns, “That’s a bit low.”

Aaron doesn’t even turn from his place in the kitchen as he smiles.

This is where the agents start to sweat because they don’t know what to say. They want to sell the place, but Aaron never makes it easy for them.

He pushes one of the glasses on the counter, the sound scraping in the quiet.

“Uh,” She says, “Well, it’s haunted.”

Aaron turns around when she says it. She’s young, younger than most of the ones who come here to show people around, and maybe she hasn’t learned to lie yet. Her prospective buyer catches Aaron’s eye as he tilts his head, eyes focused on the glass Aaron moved. With blonde hair and green eyes, he’s pretty. Too pretty if anyone asked him.

“Haunted? Well, that should knock at least 10% off the asking price.”

Aaron looks at him, the fucking gall on him. The Mill is worth three times what they’re asking for it.

“Mr Sugden—”

“Commission is commission, Rosie,” he points out to her. There’s something slick to Mr Sugden that riles Aaron up.

He’s proven right when Mr Sugden shags Rosie in the downstairs loo after the offer is put in.

She straightens her skirt when she comes out, and Aaron wants him out. There’s only one couple he’s ever liked in his house, and that’s Louis and Tony. They moved out when they started a bigger family, unable to afford to buy the Mill outright. Aaron was sorry to see them go.

However, Aaron Dingle did not die for his home to become a fuckpad for this knob.

 

*

 

‘Robert’ has a sister. She comes ‘round with boxes, and Aaron learns Robert has been living with her while his divorce goes through.

 _Imagine that_.

“It’s lovely, Rob, lots of character,” She touches the brickwork and softly runs her fingers on the fireplace. Aaron could almost bear her living here over her brother.

“It’s supposed to be haunted.”

“Haunted?”

Robert picks up the glass from the kitchen that Aaron moved and shows it to her, “Haunted.”

“At least you’ll never be lonely?”

He laughs, “When am I ever lonely, Vic?”

 

 

 

Aaron didn’t quite understand how true that was. Robert with his pretty blonde hair and sly smile seem to pick up a new woman every night, and Aaron tries to put himself at the furthest part of the flat so that he can’t hear them, but it’s like their groans go right through him and make him sick.

“Jesus, won’t it fall off?” Aaron questions as another woman leaves Robert’s bed with a smile.

He sometimes appears in places he doesn’t want to, he’s never understood why. So when he ends up in the bathroom with Robert scratching his arse and going to the toilet, Aaron rolls his eyes and knocks his razor off the ledge under the cabinet.

 _Give your dick a rest, mate, and my head_.

Robert’s eyes narrow on the razor, but he doesn’t say anything. Aaron feels his own mouth curl up in a smile.

_Yeah, you might live here now, but this is my home._

 

 

 

They end up in a holding pattern. Robert works during the week, putting on suits of varying colours and takes a briefcase looking bag with him, but then he comes home for a bottle of beer late most nights and Aaron gets that. Sometimes, he sits at the end of the settee with Robert _,_ watching whatever he is just so that they’re both not so alone.

But then he ruins it.

Come Friday or Saturday, sometimes even Sunday, he’s at it again.

Aaron sometimes lies on what was his bed, now covered in rich blue bedsheets chosen by Robert, and stares at the ceiling. It’s his bit of quiet within the silence. He’s completely thrown out of that by Robert’s proclivities.

Only tonight is different.

Aaron has been listlessly poking around the downstairs loo because he doesn’t want any part of this nonsense when he’s dragged into the bedroom by unseen forces.

He’s already preparing for it: _oh god, my eyes_.

Robert isn’t with a woman.

His spine is curved as he holds the man in front of him’s hips and ploughs heavily into his arse, licking his lips and a sheen of sweat on his back.

Aaron doesn’t know where to look, so he turns around.

 _What the fuck_ —

Robert groans, “Fuck yes, that’s it, come on.”

A hard slap.

Aaron hits a barrier when he tries to leave the room.

The duvet ruffles and Robert harshly sighs.

Aaron remembers what it was like. To be touched the way Robert is touching that man. He feels it more solidly than anything else he has in years. He half expects to look down and see himself hard, but he’s still his usual level of vague transparency.

He does the only thing he can do, the only thing that seems to make sense. He goes over to Robert, who is kneeling on the bed as he fucks himself to completion, and whispers in his ear, “Harder, for fuck’s sake harder.”

Robert moves his hands from the man’s hips, pushes down on his waist until his chest is down on the bed and he’s pinned by Robert’s body. Robert pushes into him with heavy slaps of his hips, the kind that Aaron used to feel in his throat.

Aaron keeps his eyes on Robert’s face, just his face. How he scrunches it up, eyes screwed shut and whines as his orgasm rips through his body.

 

 

*

 

Aaron sits at the kitchen table as Robert stirs his coffee, his one-night stand hovering, but getting the message when Robert doesn’t even think to say goodbye.

“Twat,” Aaron mutters as he pushes his finger through Robert’s cup. He cheers internally when it moves a bit.

“Are you there then?” Robert asks.

Aaron looks up at him, wondering if Robert can see him. His eyes are blank to where Aaron is sitting, so he must just be guessing.

“Mister or missus ghostie?”

Aaron snorts.

Robert touches his cup, pushes it back to where it was before Aaron touched it.

“If I know you’re there, I can, I don’t know, help exorcise you,” Robert says with an exasperated sigh.

 _Exorcise me? Fuck you_ , Aaron pushes the cup as hard as he can and it tips over spilling coffee on the table and some onto Robert’s lap.

“Ow! _Hey_!” Robert scolds as he stands up, coffee dripping down his thighs.

Aaron gets up and walks over to Robert, unsure if it will work, “If you heard me at all yesterday, listen up, this is _my house_ , you just live in it.”

 

 

 

Robert puts on a jumper even though it’s July and Aaron feels smug that his attitude might be lowering the temperature in the house.

He sits on the armchair with his leg thrown over the side when Robert tries again with him, sitting on the settee, “Are you there?”

Aaron ignores him.

“I understand exorcise is the wrong word. I want to help you. Move on, be happy.”

 _You want my home for your shagging buddies. No way_.

Aaron doesn’t even know if the ladies know about the blokes, or if the blokes about the ladies. Robert’s appetite seems to be endless. Aaron wonders if that was what ended his marriage. A wandering eye. Hands. Penis.

He has the face for it and Aaron thinks that pisses him off the most. How earnestly Robert is sitting there trying to open up communication with him. He’d almost believe it if he didn’t know better. But Aaron has been through tougher buyers than him, and he will be the last one standing here.

 

*

 

And so, it becomes a stalemate.

 

Robert appears to at least check that Aaron isn’t about or in the vicinity when he brings someone back. More often than not, it’s a woman, and Aaron doesn’t get caught up in that, but every so often, it’s a man, and he gets trapped.

“Excuse me,” He shouts at the universe, “I didn’t sign up for this three-way!”

Aaron starts by critiquing their technique. Robert never spends enough time kissing. He sucks cock relatively well. Encourages a decent amount.

“5 out of 10.”

He digs his fingers into his palms, eyes hopefully welded shut when Robert’s _friend_ gets onto of his hips and starts to ride him.

“For f—”

He feels it. Aaron gasps because he feels fingertips on his hips when no one is touching him.

He looks down, he isn’t somehow wedged inside someone else’s body, he’s his own incorporeal self, but he _feels_.

Robert arches his back and grits his teeth when he comes.

This one doesn’t bother to stay the night and Aaron sits on the edge of the bed when Robert rolls over.

“5 seems a bit harsh.”

Aaron waves his hand in front of Robert’s face, nothing, so he says, “Fair is fair.”

Robert doesn’t respond, just goes to sleep on his side, leaving Aaron alone with his thoughts.

 

 

 

*

 

Robert has a long day at work and when he comes home, he kicks his feet up on the coffee table. It’s also the first time he tries to make a go of proper conversation with Aaron.

“How was your day then?”

Aaron flips him off because they can’t actually talk to each other.

“I share office space with a She-Demon, so if you know anything about that in the afterlife, help me out, will ya?”

“God, I’m either talking to myself or to the ghost that lives in my house.”

Aaron kicks the table, it shakes the smallest amount.

Robert corrects, “Our house.”

 _Better. Still mine though_.

“Are you a bloke then?”

Aaron kicks the table. A small shake.

“Young or old?”

Another kick almost immediately.

“Young? Okay, young. Under 20?”

He doesn’t move.

“Over 20.”

Kick.

“But under 30.”

Another.

Robert sighs, “That’s…sad.”

Aaron shrugs, “You’re telling me.”

“Any particular reason you show up when I’m shagging?”

Aaron gets up to swat Robert’s head but it does nothing. He doesn’t feel it.

“You think if I did it right now you’d appear?”

_Did what? Found a completely random and shagged them on his settee?_

Robert bites his lip, and then shifts his hips, undoing his belt and unzipping his trousers.

Aaron just stares as Robert gets his cock out and spits on his palm before stroking himself in long and slow movements.

He doesn’t know what to do with that.

It’s clearly a performance. Robert keeping one eye out for Aaron, but he can’t just _appear_. He doesn’t even know how or why Robert can hear him in those moments that he does. It also doesn’t touch Aaron. He can’t feel Robert the way he did those other times.

“Put your back into it,” he jokes, but still. Aaron watches as Robert rucks up his own shirt and licks his bottom lip, eyes focused on his own dick as he works himself hard.

Slowly, as if things change for Robert, he stops acting and starts feeling, and that seeps into Aaron. He feels Robert’s palm on his belly like one on his own, the barest of touches over his groin and it frustrates him.

“More.”

Robert looks up, “More?”

Aaron walks around so that he’s sitting on the coffee table in front of him, wills his voice to be heard again, “More.”

Robert spreads his thighs and spits on his palm again, rubbing it over the tip. Robert’s hips buck and he fights to push them down into the seat, but he keeps going, sliding over the head, and Aaron can feel maybe a tenth of what it should feel like, but it’s enough. Robert’s legs quiver, he’s having trouble with the stimulation, heavy and hard on himself, so he wraps his fingers around his cock and wanks himself lightly a few times before going back to it.

“I can barely stand you, but…” Aaron reaches out, almost to touch Robert, but it’s pointless. He won’t feel it.

“I’m not fond of you either,” Robert breathes.

“It’s my house.”

“ _Our_ house.” Robert whines, other hand stroking the inside of his thigh, thumb slipping under his balls.

Aaron feels that small press, the no man’s land of the perineum and he closes his eyes, “Again.”

Robert rubs harder, hips rocking up and his hand tightening around his cock, trying to slow himself down, “Who are you then?”

He considers saying nothing, but what does he have to lose? Robert is clearly not buggering off, and if he can do this, make contact with Aaron after so long…

“Aaron.”

He puts his hand on Robert’s thigh, trying to push it out where he keeps trying to curl in on himself, and Robert gasps with shock as if he felt it. Aaron feels it too, the jerk of excitement in his groin as Robert gives in and strips his cock, his other hand going over and through where Aaron’s was, fingers digging into the skin in a mimicry of his action.

Aaron watches as Robert stops, his cock throbbing and twitching momentarily before he spurts come over himself and his hand, slowly stroking over the soft skin to tease it out. A final shake before he lets himself rest on his belly.

“It’s nice to meet you, Aaron.” Robert smiles, daft, and Aaron even allows Robert to take the piss. He can still feel the echo of Robert’s orgasm in himself, the pleasure that rocked and crested and spilt out. More than anything, he misses it. Being part of something vital and _alive_.

 _Why did it have to be you?_ Aaron asks the universe. It’s silent, as always.

 

 

 

Robert begins to chatter like it’s completely normal to have a ghost living with you that you can’t see, hear or touch unless you’re in some sort of throes of passion.

He talks to Aaron as he’s on his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth; when he’s pouring orange juice into a glass; before he puts cream cheese on his bagel. Aaron really thinks Robert is one of those tossers, a ‘hipster’. Still, he trails behind him, listening to him talk and how he mentions Aaron’s name a lot so that he feels involved.

 

 

 

It all goes along nicely until Aaron sees Robert’s search history open on his computer. He’s been searching the Mill and Aaron’s name.

Aaron pushes as hard as he can and slams the laptop closed, Robert looking up from the kitchen.

He hopes the screen is cracked, the wanker.

“I just wanted to know more about you,” Robert says, picking up the laptop, opening it up. Not damaged.

 _Shame_.

“Ghosts don’t stay hanging around because they’re happy, Aaron.”

Aaron feels that thing at the edge of his consciousness sometimes. An exposed nerve root that feels like an electric shock when you poke at it.

“You’re not happy here, you’re clinging to a place where you used to live.”

 _It’s **mine**!_ Aaron thinks, and Robert sighs.

“And I should move on, is that it?” Aaron throws back, Robert none the wiser of Aaron’s anger. “Give up what was mine, what I bled for?”

He doesn’t know where that came from. His life before this is hazy. His death hazier still.

Robert sits down and puts the laptop back on the coffee table, “Aren’t there people you want to see again?”

“No, now get out of my house.” He feels it deep inside, he wants Robert out. The lights flicker, and Robert’s forearms get goosebumps.

“Aaron—”

 _Out! Out, out, out, Out!_ His head is banging with it. He dissipates into himself just to find some peace.

 

 

 

 

He pops up in the bedroom, lying on the bed again. Aaron rolls onto his side and brings his knees up to his chest. He doesn’t know how long he’s been disappeared for, but Robert comes out of the bathroom in his pyjamas and he freezes in the doorway.

“What the—?”

Aaron looks at him, grunts and turns over.

“Excuse me.”

He frowns, “What?”

“What do you mean what? Get out of my house,” Robert tells him as he reaches to grab Aaron and goes through him.

Aaron scoots over the other side and looks at him, “Wait. You can see me?”

“Aaron?” Robert gets himself up on the bed, “Is that—?”

“How can you see me?” Aaron tries to touch Robert, his hand closest to Aaron holding himself up. He goes through Robert still. “How can you hear me?”

Robert laughs, and Aaron glares at him.

“Aaron, I can see you.”

“Yeah, cheers,” he grouses.

Robert shakes his head, “No, _I can see you_. Hi.”

Aaron blinks and he realises what Robert means, “Oh.”

“Oh?”

He isn’t really ready for this part. He’s just used to floating around all by himself, “Caught me off guard, didn’t ya?”

“I think I’ve heard it all now. Caught my own ghost off guard,” Robert laughs harder, and Aaron wishes with all his might that he could push him off the bed.

“Shut up, you twat.”

Robert wipes his eyes, the tears of laughter evident, “God, after everything that’s what you’re going with?”

Aaron folds his arms.

“Well, at least you’re fit," Robert says with an assessing gaze.

That gets him gaping.

Robert raises his eyebrows, “Creeping in my room while I’m shagging someone else. Dirty bugger.”

“I wasn’t—!”

“I heard you.”

“I was trapped!”

“Those poor girls—”

Aaron corrects him right then and there, “Never the girls.”

“So you just happened to be trapped while I was,” Robert makes a gesture, “y’know. Other blokes.”

“Yeah.”

“A bit weird,” Robert says, understatement of the century.

“A bit,” Aaron agrees, his tone heavy with sarcasm.

“Didn’t really agree with the rating system.”

Aaron shrugs, “Not your system.”

Robert smiles, “Didn’t do too bad downstairs though, did I?”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Aaron wants to laugh at Robert’s incredulity.

Robert edges his fingers towards Aaron, and he gets it. Robert just wants to connect with Aaron, but he can’t. They can’t.

“Better than a 5,” Aaron says, getting up off the bed.

“Where are you going?” Robert asks.

Aaron shrugs again, “Dunno. Bit creepy if I watch you sleep.”

Robert nods, “I guess, but, we’re kind of past all that now, aren’t we?”

Aaron stares at him, and Robert looks back.

He thinks that maybe this is a turning point, a fork in the road. Go one way, and it sends him down one path, go the other, and it’s a completely different outcome.

So, for the first time in an age, Aaron lies back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling as he does, Robert sliding into his side of the bed and getting ready to go to sleep.

“Night, Aaron.”

“Night, Robert.”

 

 

 

Aaron dreams.

He sees flashes of white light that glare at him as they rush over his head and he closes his eyes because they hurt to look at. He feels like a lead weight, unable to move, unable to speak.

 _Help_.

 

 

 

As if he was never asleep, he wakes up, and Robert blinks at him, “You’re back.”

He’s sitting up in bed, reading a book, and Aaron remembers it’s a Saturday. He thinks it is. Robert was at work in the yesterday of his mind but maybe a week has passed since then.

“I went?”

Robert hums, “Dunno when, but I woke up and you were gone. Figured you’d had enough of me.”

“I’ve always had enough of you.”

“Dick.”

Aaron smiles.

“So, where do you go?” Robert asks as he closes his book.

Aaron thinks back to the flashing lights and the general blackness he sometimes fades into, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“There’s not a guide for it, Robert, the well-known how-to-be-dead-in-your-20s was out of stock,” Aaron huffs, and Robert holds his hands up.

“Sorry.”

Robert bites his lip and then picks up his book again. Aaron sits next to him while he reads and that’s how they spend the morning.

 

 

 

Aaron becomes the elephant in the room.

Robert can see him, Aaron can see everyone, and no one else can see Aaron. Victoria sits at the kitchen table in Aaron’s chair, so he stands behind her, and Robert keeps looking at him and not her.

“Rob, you okay?” She asks over her teacup.

Robert clears his throat, “Mmm? Yeah, thinking about gutting the kitchen.”

Aaron mimes slitting his throat, and Robert smiles to himself.

Victoria looks behind her, through Aaron, “This one is just new in, it’s got the lovely countertops.”

“I figured black would be more appropriate,” Robert hides his laugh behind his mug and Aaron shakes his head.

“Black? Seems a bit much,” Victoria shrugs, “If it’s what you want.”

“It is.”

Funnily enough, Robert is looking at Aaron and not the kitchen when he says it.

 

 

 

 

“You knock things over,” Robert says to him as he’s having a beer after Victoria leaves.

Aaron sits next to him, “I just throw myself at them and they might move.”

“The table shaking?”

“Me booting it.”

Robert nods, “But I felt you.”

Aaron raises his eyebrows.

A flush rises up on Robert’s cheeks, “You touched my thigh, before.”

When he sat on this very settee having a wank.

Aaron shrugs, “I don’t know. I’ve never been able to feel before.”

Of course, _feel_ is the word Robert picks up on.

“Feel?”

He refuses to get caught up in it, and Robert goes to grab his arm when Aaron gets up and he goes through him still, but it feels like electricity stirring up Aaron’s arm instead of nothing like it usually would.

Robert draws his hand back like he feels it too.

“Aaron—”

Aaron folds his arms, refusing to give in, but he does when Robert won’t stop staring at him, “I can feel you. Sometimes touching me. Sometimes what you feel.”

“When I have sex?”

“Sex—,” Aaron looks down at Robert’s groin, “Wank.”

“Okay.” Robert agrees, but what he’s agreeing to, Aaron doesn’t know.

 

 

 

 

Aaron gasps as he reappears on the bed, “Fuck.”

Robert has his feet planted on the duvet, hands slick with lube, one around his cock and two fingers awkwardly penetrating his arse.

Aaron moans as Robert looks over at him, his mouth fallen open as he silently breathes and holds his pleasure.

“Are you kidding—?” Aaron cups his own groin as Robert rubs his thumb heavily over the head of his cock.

Aaron realises that for once, he is hard. He can’t affect his clothing, he has never been able to, so his erection presses awkwardly against his black jeans as he mirrors Robert, feet flat, knees up, hips rocking.

“Tell me,” Robert gasps, “Tell me how you’d do it.”

Aaron looks over at Robert, his face earnest again, but this time, it feels real. He wants to do this thing for Aaron. To let him feel _something_ for the first time in however long.

“Under the head,” Aaron licks his lips, remembering how he used to get himself off, “the—”

Robert already knows, his fingers brushing the underside and Aaron curls his toes.

“And your other hand,” Aaron sighs as his body throbs. “Go hard.”

There’s no real way for Robert to do that lying on his arm, so he lets himself go, pulls his fingers away and turns over onto his knees, chest down, and it’s perfect.

Aaron feels the stretch, the micro burn as Robert tries to nudge in a third finger, and he’s moaning like Robert is fucking him.

On the one hand, it’s mortifying. Not a finger on him and he’s practically ready to roll over and be shagged into the bed. And, on the other, he hasn’t felt this much in forever and he craves it. He could come. He could really come.

“Robert,” Aaron moans. His body tightens up, and Robert starts to shake, the both of them with their chests caving, bellies fluttering and cocks pulsing, push and feed into each other’s orgasms.

With a sigh, Robert stretches out and lays on his own come stain, “Aaron.”

 

 

 

 

It takes Aaron longer to notice that Robert doesn’t bring people home so much anymore. Actually, he hasn’t in ages.

They have sort of fallen into a routine where Aaron appears at breakfast, they chat a bit, and Robert goes off to work, then Aaron ends up back in the kitchen at dinner time and they go up to bed at about 9.

They have plans tonight, but Aaron gets the most crippling headache. The lights from his dream press in on him from both sides blinding him until he’s folded up in a ball on the bed.

Robert kneels beside him, unable to touch or comfort him. Aaron wonders that if he wasn’t dead, would this be what it felt like? He doesn’t realise he’s screaming until Robert is wetly trying to shush him.

“Aaron, come on, please.”

Aaron focuses on Robert. On the softness of his face, the worry lines, and how he always, _always_ , leaves his hand on the bed for Aaron to go through. He goes to pat it, only this time his hand slaps on top of Robert’s.

“Aaron—”

He can’t feel happiness. Pain lances through his brain and Robert grabs hold of his shoulders as he cries out.

“Let me die,” he moans, rolling back, and Robert touches his forehead. This time he goes through him again.

“What—?” Aaron mumbles, “What’s happening to me?”

Robert looks at him, panicked and afraid, “I don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t—”

Aaron goes deaf, the room goes black.

 

 

 

 

Aaron wakes up in the bright lights again. His mum is looking at him, so happy, so relieved.

“Oh, my baby!” She kisses his cheek and hugs him tight.

“Er, alright, Mum.”

He notices she has lines around her eyes and mouth didn’t have before.

Doctors filter in behind her and she stands to the side, holding his hand and lets them explain what happened to him.

 

 

 

He’s been in a coma for eight years. He’s nearly thirty years old. His house, his home, is in the process of being sold to a Mr R J Sugden.

Chas shushes him when he mentions the sale, “Don’t you worry about it. When Robert heard about what happened to you, he stopped the sale then and there.”

“He did?” Aaron frowns, “I thought he wanted the flat?”

“He did. He was the first person to be able to afford to buy the whole Mill, but no, when he heard you woke up, he said this was your home and he wanted you to have it back.”

 

 

 

Aaron heads over to the Mill and it’s how he remembers it from the outside. Inside is a bit different, a new lick of paint, a new key in his hand.

Opening the door to his flat, it gives him the strangest sense of déjà vu. He never actually lived in the Mill after it was finished eight years ago. He got into a fight, trying to defend his friend when he was struck around the back of the head, and that’s what sent him into his coma.

He touches the coffee table and it feels familiar. Everything does, but it shouldn’t.

“I should be out of your hair by the weekend,” A voice tells him.

Aaron turns around with a smile, “Robert.”

“Aaron?”

“I guess.”

Blonde hair, green eyes; pretty. He’d know Robert anywhere. Aaron strides over to him and wraps his arms around Robert’s shoulders and lets himself well up when Robert hugs him back.

“You’re okay,” Robert laughs, “You’re not dead.”

“No, I’m not dead, just old.”

“Oi. I’m older than you,” Robert nudges him with his head, and they pull back enough to look at each other.

Aaron bites his lip, “This is my home.”

But it doesn’t feel right.

Robert smiles, and corrects, “Our home.”

Aaron nods, “Our home.”

_Finally._


	4. Luna Diebus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 19\. **Public** ~~| Formal Wear | Straitjacket | Cock-Warming~~
> 
>  
> 
> _Aaron hates moon days._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A werewolf!au (Aaron is a werewolf/Robert a human). I lied when I said [the ghost fic] was the last of mine and Rusty's AU ideas, this was. I took a bit of a liberty with 'public', technically as the sex occurs outside, that is public.
> 
> Small warning for Aaron willfully ignoring using a condom (in spite of knowing that he cannot infect Robert with diseases). It's not an issue for them within the context of the story, but please be aware if that may upset you.
> 
>  _Luna diebus_ is Latin for moon days.

Aaron hates moon days. That impulsive itch under his skin to hunt, rip, rend, to debase himself with what he believes are his lesser instincts. He knows his inability to reconcile himself to his nature makes it ten times worse. It makes him more aggressive, so much so that he’s pretty much packed off to a cabin in the woods every month because no one wants to be around the one wolf who hates being a wolf.

He hasn’t had a full change in years, and when he’s out here, he keeps company with a pack of mangy dogs who live in the woods all year ‘round, giving them loving fusses that no one would ever dare to. He tries not to get too offended when they nudge their rabbit carcasses at him. Aaron sets traps, humane ways of stringing them up.

If he had any say in it at all, he wouldn’t even do that, but _moon days_.

His skin is prickling with the need to shift, to become one with his animal side, but he denies it once more. The one concession he makes is that he takes his shoes off to feel the moss under his naked feet. Feet aren’t as sensitive as wolf paws, but he makes do.

Cooking his last catch, it sticks in his throat, his body rejecting the toughness of the meat. He knows he’s got some raw rabbit leftover, soft and tender, but he wants to do this. To be as human as possible.

The joke is that the only thing Aaron hates more than wolves is humans. Idiots. Morons in weak skin that splits when they fall down, like ripe peaches, so easily bruised.

Growler, an ugly looking brown dog, flattens himself down, giving Aaron sad eyes in the hopes of getting some meat, and Aaron chucks the cooked flesh at him.

He hates every joyous bite of the almost pulpy rabbit meat.

“Alright, now bugger off the lot of you,” Aaron shoos them. There are five dogs in his little pack: Growler, Syd, Charmer, Collar and Pig. Pig is Aaron’s favourite, a German Shepard with the common sense of a toilet brush. Of all of them, Pig probably considers Aaron his brother the most. He also doesn’t want to leave Aaron.

He doesn’t want them to either, but he can feel a growl bubbling up in his throat, his need to be alone increasing, “ _Go_.”

Syd is the only bitch and she cowers a little at Aaron’s voice. He hates that. He refuses to confuse her by reaching out. Instead, he stands firm and they all slope off into the woods. They’ll come back for more food when it’s light. When the danger has passed.

Night is falling quickly so he checks his traps, killing anything still alive if he comes across it. His mental hackles raise when he hears rustling in the leaves near one of his biggest traps.

His wolf sits inside his belly like a puppy, happily wagging its tail.

Aaron shakes his head.

 _Been waiting to tear someone a new one for days, but now you want to roll over? Sure_.

His hearing is heightened, particularly on moon days, so he hears erratic breathing before he sees anything. His legs carry him swiftly, but silently, to his trap.

 

 

 

It’s a human. Of course it is.

 

 

Aaron is tempted to leave the twat hanging upside down, but the smell of his blood rushing to his head is making Aaron feel nauseous.

“Andy, you dick!”

“It’s Aaron actually,” He mutters as the human twists as best he can while swinging from a length of rope.

“Oh, shit!”

The human’s heart rate picks up, fear sending it into the hundreds and that buries itself under Aaron’s skin like the scent of it. Sweet, crisp, and a bit tangy.

“You shouldn’t be in these woods at night," he warns, but his prey huffs, his demeanour snarky and put out.

“I got lost, didn’t I? I was out here with my brother, ended up—”

He gestures to the trap his ankle is still caught in.

Aaron hums, “People hunt in these woods.”

“Yeah, well—”

Aaron doesn’t warn him when he lets him down, and the human piles on himself, long limbs splaying as he oofs out a sound.

“Jesus.”

Aaron reties the rope and he’s going to head to his next trap when he hears a ‘wait’.

He turns back.

“You’re not going to—”

“What?”

“This…this was your trap, wasn’t it?”

Aaron shrugs, “Yeah, and?”

“I’ve been hanging upside down for nearly an hour.”

 “Tell someone who cares,” Aaron carries on, and the human lurches for him, trying to grab his arm.

It’s automatic, but he loops his arm around the human’s and grabs the front of his shirt, shoving him back against the tree. His strength is three times that of a human, so he struggles against Aaron’s grip.

“Don’t—” Aaron shakes his head. It feels like it’s getting clouded. “Don’t fight me.”

Another ricochet of fear.

No. His fear isn’t crisp and sweet. It’s sour like it should be. _He_ is crisp and sweet. Aaron feels enticed in to take a sniff.

“What are—?” Aaron freezes.

More wriggling and more kick off of that intriguing scent, and Aaron forces himself to let go, “No.”

The human stumbles away, “No? You just attacked me and you’re saying _no_?”

“Walk away, don’t run,” Aaron commands.

A dry laugh, “Are you kidding me?”

“Walk. Don’t run.”

Aaron’s wolf is awake and _interested_. It’s pressing against his ribs, wanting out, wanting to get closer to the mystery. An inquisitive little bastard, Aaron tries to shove it back in the box.

The stranger turns his back and Aaron grabs his coat by the collar, almost choking him when it yanks him back.

“What do you have on you?” Aaron demands. “Were you hunting?”

Anger on the man smells like burning nights and bonfires, “I told you, I was with my brother, let me go.”

Aaron steps into his space and smells the exposed line of his neck.

“ _Hey_ , get off.”

“You know there are wolves in these woods?” Aaron whispers, the sweet smell filling his nostrils. It’s indescribable like fresh moss and what he thinks are jam pastries.

“You mean weres? It’s not even a full moon.”

No, it’s the night before, not as powerful, but still skittering across every wolf’s skin.

“What’s your name?” He’s prowling, his steps slow and measured even in the tiny space between them.

“What?” The human stammers, his sympathetic nervous system finally kicking in, and it spices up his scent with cinnamon.

 _Apples_ , Aaron can smell apples. He loves apples.

He’s knocked out of the smell of apples when the human rolls under Aaron’s arm and gets his jacket out of his grip.

“I appreciate the help, but I’m fine now.” Hands up, he’s backing away slowly.

He trips over a branch and lands flat on his back.

Aaron shakes his head, “All you humans are the same.”

“Humans?” Another stammer, Aaron stands on the edge of his coat so that he can’t get up. “You’re—you’re a wolf.”

 _Yes_.

His wolf rumbles with pride at being recognised. Aaron gets a grip on himself and takes several steps back, trying to shake the cobwebs out of his head.

The human gets up and his face shows his panic as he tries to leave without upsetting Aaron. They’ve all heard the story. Human runs from wolf, human gets their throat ripped out.

Aaron’s wolf shudders and curls up against the idea. Aaron imagines it walking in circles, almost chasing its own tail. Its ears prick and so do his.

His human is trying to leave.

 _No_.

Aaron walks after him, the human looking back at how Aaron keeps pace with him, an unwanted protector.

 _It’s not in my nature to protect_.

“Are you just gonna follow me home like a dog then?”

 _Dog?_ Aaron growls.

“Okay, sorry, not a dog, but you’re…you’re looking at me like—”

He stops, and Aaron stops with him, “Like what?”

“Like you want to eat me.”

That surprises him.

“I don’t want to eat you.”

“Oh,” The human smiles, Aaron frowns. “I’m Robert. Since you asked, and you are?”

Aaron doesn’t say anything.

“Don’t werewolves have names? Or do you just call each other Spot?” Robert coughs, “I will stop with the dog jokes.”

Aaron rolls his eyes, “They’re speciesist shit. Any wolf worth their salt knows how to live among humans.”

But sometimes, there are exceptions. Wolves who can’t control the shift, can’t control their nature, and they are dealt with. Not by human means, but wolf ones. Usually with the same torn out throat that they inflicted on their victims.

It’s Aaron’s greatest fear. That he’ll never settle. He’s still young in his shift, only twenty-three, five years is nothing in a wolf’s lifetime, but if he can’t control it…He likes to help with the little ones, the whelps, they're uncomplicated and unjudging, and if he was a danger he’d never get to do that. So, if he can’t get okay with himself, he’d rather they tore his throat out.

It doesn’t help that his first shift exposed his _orientation_. His wolf chasing down its deepest desires, and therefore Aaron’s. He couldn’t hide it anymore. Had to present himself to his Alpha, his uncle, and wait to be judged. Maybe it was because his uncle didn’t judge him that Aaron struggled. He expected to be tossed from the pack. Unable to reproduce, to strengthen their numbers, he was a liability. Cain had simply hugged him in close, his wolf so much stronger now that Aaron’s own was out in the open to smell it. Big, shaggy and black, it did not recoil from him. There was no lie when Aaron was embraced and told he was still a part of his family.

It’s why he has to be better. For them. For all they’ve done for him.

Robert is staring at Aaron, and he realises he must have been silent for a long time. His face is nakedly curious. Aaron wonders if he is the first wolf to be so open with him. He’s sure Robert has met tons, but like he said, speciesist shit keeps them hidden. Only revealed in their weakest and ugliest moments.

“I’ve never met an open were,” Robert says taking a step towards him, as if he could read Aaron’s thoughts.

“Keep walking,” Aaron warns him, but Robert ignores him, coming in closer and it’s sweet apples, cinnamon and tree moss again.

“And you don’t want to eat me.”

Aaron looks at his lips, wide, fuller at the center, up to his eyes that are like the pale fresh grown moss in his scent, “No.”

There is still nothing for miles, and this man, this breakable peach of a human is getting closer to him and not further away.

His wolf is quivering in anticipation. Aaron half expects it to roll on its back and expose its soft belly. It’s that vulnerability that makes him snap, dragging Robert in by his arms, fear jolting up as he’s shaken.

“What. Are. You. Doing?” Aaron demands.

Robert shakes his head, “I don’t know.”

They’re a hairbreadth apart, their chests heaving for different reasons, and Robert is the one who lurches forward.

Aaron lets go of his arms in surprise, and Robert clutches at his face, their lips mashed together as Robert presses up against Aaron any and every way that he can. Aaron stumbles with the force of Robert leaning on him, his arms going around his waist to steady him and the smell of him fills his head and clouds his judgement.

 _He smells so good_. It’s intoxicating. Aaron sways a bit with it and opens his mouth, lets Robert’s tongue press hotly into his mouth. It’s like firecrackers going off in his brain. He starts to rip at Robert’s clothes, trying to take his coat off his shoulders, soft black leather, and Robert doesn’t fight it. He submits to Aaron’s will as he should.

 _Good_. His wolf is pleased.

There’s a tree to their left, Aaron steers Robert towards it with strong hands on his hips, Robert making a sound against Aaron’s mouth when his back hits it. Aaron slides himself down the length of Robert’s body onto his knees and wrestles with his belt and jeans to get them down his thighs. Once his underwear is peeled down, Aaron can get the full scent of him, the heady thick smell of him, but also how concentrated it is in his groin. Nosing at his cock, Robert is semi-interested. Leaning back, Aaron looks up at him, but he’s also away from that smell. The fresher air penetrates his brain.

He takes his hands off Robert and puts them onto his thighs, bowing his head, “You don’t—just move slowly.”

 _How could he do this?_ Trap a human into wolf business, the moon scattering his brain to the point where he was going to suck his cock like a bitch in heat.

Robert doesn’t move, Aaron can see his legs don’t move. He looks up a little further and Robert has put his hands either side of the tree behind him. He’s fully hard now, an open gift, a present for Aaron and his wolf. Aaron doubts that Robert even recognises that. He just widens his stance a little more and kicks off more of his scent.

Aaron pushes up Robert's jumper, blue like the ocean, scrunches it up in one hand as he covers the blonde hair above Robert’s cock as he wraps his lips around him. Robert gives in almost immediately, soft whimpers in his throat as Aaron swallows him down. Aaron lets him poke in the back of his throat, filling him up as he forces his throat to relax, only to let it close back up. He pulls off to wet saliva clinging to Robert as he coughs and wipes his mouth.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Aaron tells him. Robert nods as he agrees. It’s good. Aaron’s wolf rubs happily inside his chest. _We chose well_.

He shakes his head, _we didn’t choose anything_.

Robert lets go of the tree and manages to turn around without his jeans tripping him up, Aaron still on his knees as Robert puts his hands back on the tree, this time to grip into it as Aaron parts his cheeks. He’s greeted with smooth skin, so he can’t help but reach out and run his finger from Robert’s tailbone down to his balls. It has Robert reaching up on his toes, and Aaron keeps on that, pressing his face between his cheeks, his tongue pressing wide in generous licks as he slaps one hand onto Robert’s arse to leave a hot and heavy handprint on him.

Robert whines as Aaron pushes his tongue inside him, the most concentrated part of his smell, but also his taste. It’s different from his smell, it’s more like iron, thick and heated blood that speaks to the wolf inside Aaron who wants to bite. It wants to do all they’re doing and more. To cram itself so deeply inside Robert that he can feel it howl.

Robert’s thighs shake, and Aaron lets him go, “In my pocket, my wallet.”

Aaron looks up, the curve of Robert’s arse, swollen handprint on it, the slope of his spine as he presses himself into the tree. Aaron’s hands automatically going for his wallet. There’s a condom packet and a lube one in there. Wolves can’t transmit diseases to humans, it’s a known fact, but the lube is helpful. Aaron is one with his wolf when they feel jealous possession of Robert’s body and how it upsets them that he might invite another inside it with a condom.

He forces himself to sit with that, the spike of anger might lead him to do something stupid, but it gets Robert looking back over his shoulder, “What—?”

Aaron bites his bum, the opposite side to the slap. He also pulls Robert back by his hips as he stands up, going on to free himself from his own jeans, red and swollen and throbbing when he rubs the lube on himself. Aaron uses the last third to push two fingers inside Robert, one at a time and then both. When he satisfied, he kicks at Robert’s ankles with one foot to get him to spread a bit further.

It becomes clear right away to Robert that he didn’t use the condom, “Wait—”

“I can’t get you sick.”

Aaron realises he doesn’t have full presence of his own mind. He’s losing himself at his edges, his wolf creeping in more and more, its chant becoming louder and louder, until for the first time, Aaron can hear it: _mine_. _Mine, mine, mine, mine_ …it’s endless.

 _No_.

Buried to the hilt inside Robert, Robert’s fingers uselessly gripping at the bark, his moans sing right through Aaron and he rests his head between Robert’s shoulder blades, his fingers digging into his hips. His wolf wants to rut. Fuck himself into that mix of heady pleasure and tight ownership. Robert’s voice is shaking. Aaron clings to that. He unclenches his fingers from one side of Robert's hips and wraps them back around his cock. Aaron stays plastered to his back and waits until Robert’s voice steadies. His pleasure rockets again in his scent and he shifts in unconscious encouragement.

After that, Aaron fucks himself inside with hard slaps that jostle them both, Robert’s cock jerking in his hand as he hangs his head between his shoulders and his moans become grunts as he accepts Aaron’s rough treatment of him.

 _No_.

Aaron pulls out, gets Robert upright, his face confused and a little bit spaced out as he turns around, and Aaron guides him onto the forest floor on his back, tearing his jeans off his leg and his shoe being chucked off. On his back, Aaron can see Robert’s face, his eyes as Aaron bends his naked leg up towards his chest as he fits himself back inside. Robert screws his eyes shut and arches his back as he clutches at Aaron’s. Aaron pushes his jumper up again, freeing his cock to view and strokes it as he rolls his hips against Robert’s arse.

The whimpers come back, the smell, and when Robert grabs Aaron down for a kiss, he goes. He steadies himself on Robert’s kisses, how he holds Aaron’s face again, his other knee squeezing at Aaron’s ribs as they satisfy themselves on each other.

Aaron’s wolf howls: _pin him. Own him_.

He tries to ignore it until it turns from buzzing in his ears to roaring in his head as he pulls Robert’s wrists away from his face and pins them by the sides of his own head.

They both wetly curse at each other as they fuck, their breathing harsh as they grunt and groan, Aaron looming over Robert as Robert leaks clear fluid onto his belly.

“Fuck, come on, I need—” Robert bites his lip.

Aaron hears it. _He needs_.

He lets go of one of Robert’s wrists and jerks his cock in time with his thrusts as they get shorter and faster, almost painful in how he slaps his hips against Robert’s arse.

Robert swears, shivers intensely, and spurts come out of his cock. The vice of his arse demands more of Aaron and he goes back to those hard, rutting shoves until he cries out and paints the inside of Robert’s body.

He flops onto Robert’s chest, Robert’s thighs easing down from Aaron’s sides, the both of them panting heavily as they come down from their orgasmic highs.

Robert strokes Aaron’s shoulders as he slips out of his arse, the sticky trail of come following him.

Aaron’s wolf settles, curled up and content, and not even the moon herself bothers it.

 

 

 

 

 

They redress, Aaron keeps his eyes down in shame.

“Are you alright?” He asks.

Robert nods, “I’m fine.”

Nothing is shredded, so Robert just looks like a roughed-up version of himself, which is true if he spent half the night hung upside down in a tree.

“Well, uh, thanks…for that,” Robert turns his back ready to go the way Aaron showed him, and Aaron reaches for him, only to just miss him.

“Yeah. Cheers.”

Robert doesn’t hear him.

Only now, Aaron doesn’t feel any urge to chase him, to do anything but curl up in his bed. He stays there for the rest of the moon days, Pig and Syd by his feet, Growler on the protective prowl, with Charmer and Collar sitting with watchful eyes from the porch.

Aaron’s wolf doesn’t make any more appearances either. Silent for the first time in five years, Aaron doesn’t know if this is normal. If someone can just lose their wolf. He stays in the cabin just in case, but he needn’t have bothered. It doesn’t come back.

 

 

 

 

 

He sits listlessly in his mum’s kitchen when she corners him about it, “What’s with you then?”

“Nothing,” he grumbles.

“Uh-huh, you always come back rowdier than normal from your moon days.”

“Maybe I grew out of it.”

“My arse, what happened?”

“Nothing, Mum. Nothing happened, alright,” He practically shouts at her and he storms up to his room.

She gives him ten minutes before she knocks on and opens his door, “Now, that’s the Aaron I remember.”

Aaron looks at her from his bed, “My wolf’s gone.”

Chas frowns, “Your wolf isn’t gone, love.”

“I haven’t felt it since—”

“Since what?”

Aaron hesitates, to spend your moon days with someone, anyone, human or wolf, is considered a big deal. An honour among them. Aaron didn’t plan it, didn’t take someone he cared for. He picked a human up like a stray and fucked him because his wolf demanded it.

“I was with someone.”

“You took—” his mum sees his face, “You didn’t take someone for your moon days.”

“He got caught in one of my traps.”

His mum lets out a breath, “A human?”

He nods.

“You could have seriously hurt him, killed him!”

“I know!”

“But you didn’t.”

Her tone tells Aaron that he’s missing the point, but if he knew it already, he wouldn’t be missing it.

“Aaron, you haven’t shown a lot of interest in… _people_ , since your first shift.”

He doesn’t get it.

“Your wolf isn’t gone. It’s waiting, for your human.”

 _Your_.

“You think I—I mated myself to _one of them_.”

“One of them? Aaron, you were one of them until you shifted. Not everyone in the family has a wolf and can shift, you know that.”

“I can’t ‘ave.”

“How did he smell?”

He smelt of apples, and cinnamon, and moss.

“He probably smelled really good; Cain said Moira smelled like honey and crisp leaves.”

Cain and Moira are a mated pair. The alpha pair. Moira is also human.

“Mum, I don’t want this,” He tells her honestly.

She tilts her head and sighs, “I know, sweetheart, but it is what it is.”

 _Meant to be_.

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t take much to figure out Robert and Andy are the Sugdens.

Robert Sugden, fresh back from travels unknown, Aaron wasn’t around much when Robert still lived here. His mum wanted him as far away from wolf business as she could get him, on the off chance he wouldn’t present. Only he came back just before his eighteenth birthday, angry and lost in the way only a wolf can be: raw and violent. His sexuality just complicated things further until his foster dad, a human outside of the pack, was able to get him to see sense. Not without a bit of bloodshed and a lot of sorrow on Aaron’s part.

It’s him his mum gets to come in and to talk more sense into Aaron about going to look for Robert.

 _You’re going to fall in love one day, Aaron, wolf or not. You can’t stop yourself_.

This isn’t love. This is…mating.

“So, it’s deeper than love?” Paddy asks him as they sit with their tea.

Aaron shrugs. Wolves mate for life. They pick someone vital to their very being, their needs and deem them ‘the One’.

Aaron’s wolf is still strangely silent. He guesses its waiting. Waiting for Robert.

“Aaron.”

“What? You think he’s gonna understand what its—what _I’ve_ done?”

And there’s the rub. Aaron might have mated his soul to Robert’s, Robert owes him no such fealty. He’s not a wolf.

“You won’t know until you ask him.”

He rolls his eyes, “You knew Robert, back then.”

Shagging around, a bit of a troublemaker, Robert. Aaron’s wolf wouldn’t stand for it. The possessive thoughts he gets even now, he’d tear anyone to shreds. Scar up Robert’s pretty face to make sure no one would want him but Aaron.

“Ten years is a long time, Aaron.”

Aaron can see it in Paddy’s face. He wants to hope for Aaron’s sake that Robert is different. That he isn’t what he once was, and that if he is, Aaron will find out sooner rather than later.

That’s what Paddy doesn’t get. He can’t ‘unchoose’ Robert. He either lives with this decision…or he dies with it.

 

 

 

 

Cain grabs Robert and shoves him in a barn.

Aaron’s wolf goes ballistic. He can smell straw and apples and moss on Cain and nothing like Moira. He grabs his uncle by his jacket and shoves him back with all his body weight. Cain might be the alpha, but Aaron is young enough, stupid enough and with enough will to challenge him.

“Best find ‘im then, hadn’t ya?” Cain goads Aaron, and Aaron pacing in tandem with his wolf. “You know how I knew? He reeks of you. Got yourself all over him, didn’t ya?”

Aaron flushes with embarrassment along the hot line of shame that he felt that day. It’s why he didn’t use a condom, unconsciously saturating Robert with his smell. _Mine_.

He takes a swing at Cain, more for his comments than his actions and then he nicks his car to find Robert, starting at Moira’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s distressingly easy. It’s a set up plain and simple. Robert tied to a chair and gagged. He looks around with wild eyes when Aaron lets himself in to untie him.

“You!”

Aaron nods, “Me.”

Robert rubs his wrists to get his circulation back, “Look, if I offended your pack—”

“You didn’t.”

“I was hit over the head and tied to a chair, I think that’s grounds for—”

“It’s me,” Aaron admits. “When I—we…”

He doesn’t know how to do this. His wolf is awake and crooning, it wants and Aaron wants.

“When we had sex,” Robert says bluntly, and Aaron looks down. “You’re related to Cain. You’re a Dingle then; a Dingle wolf.”

Their pack is big, bigger than most. It’s also known that if they carry the wolf, regardless of lineage, they bear the Dingle name. The moment he turned, Aaron lost who he was, who he was ever going to be and became this. Aaron Dingle.

“Aaron.”

Robert looks at him and his face immediately softens, “And Cain didn’t fancy someone like me carrying on with his…?”

“Nephew.”

“Wow.”

Aaron hears his own knees crack as he stands back up, “You know a lot about wolf politics.”

“I’ve travelled,” Robert winces as he stands up, shaking one of his feet. His ankle must have been pinched pretty tight. “I know things.”

“But you didn’t know enough to not go in the woods on a moon day.”

Robert frowns, “Wolves are wolves, not animals.”

Aaron’s wolf croons louder. _See_. He tries to trap it under a lid, but it won’t be silenced, “I could have killed you, my uncle could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t; he didn’t. Is that what this is about?” Robert folds his arms, “Aaron, we had sex, interspecies sex isn’t outlawed, and from what I remember, your uncle is mated to a human—”

Aaron’s wolf shuts up, it sits on its hindlegs and waits. Dawn rises on Robert’s face.

“You…?” Robert gestures between the two of them.

“I didn’t know,” he admits.

“How could you not know?”

Aaron feels himself bristle, “I was out there minding my own business when you—”

“You’re blaming this on me?!” Robert’s voice creeps up in pitch, borderline hysterical.

“You came out there smelling the way you did, what was I supposed to do?” Aaron questions, getting up in Robert’s space. It’s that damn smell again. Autumn encapsulated in skin. Freedom of the hunt, the earth and everything that is wild enticing him in.

“Oh no you don’t,” Robert backs away, but Aaron catches his shirt. “ _Bad dog_.”

The ridiculousness of it stops them both, they stare, and they both burst out laughing. Aaron is able to think and breathe again and he puts some more distance between him and Robert.

“You want the truth?”

Robert nods.

“I’m young, too young. No one ever told me because no one meets their – person – this young. Cain was in his thirties when he met Moira.”

“And you just picked me?”

Aaron’s wolf whines and cries. It senses Robert’s sadness.

“I didn’t just pick you, Robert, I need you.”

“You need me?” It’s filled with a soft sort of hope that tears fierceness out of his wolf. It will protect Robert from ever feeling like he isn’t needed or wanted.

“I think you need me too,” Aaron whispers, taking a tentative step forward.

“Do I?”

“You coulda said no, in the woods. You didn’t know me or my name, but you let me—” Aaron reaches out for Robert’s arm, “you let me touch you.”

“I wanted you to,” Robert admits quietly. “I needed you to.”

“Still?”

Robert licks his lips and nods.

They meet in the middle, Aaron’s face in Robert’s hands as they kiss over and over. Aaron’s wolf doesn’t howl. Aaron feels sound bubble in his chest. His arms start to hurt, his legs twist and crack. He screams as he folds in on himself. Robert going down with him.

“Aaron!”

 _No, it’s good_. He laughs. He laughs through the pain, and Robert looks at him like he’s mad. His hoodie rips, his throat tears out a roar as he crawls onto all fours, his skin sprouting fur along his spine.

Five years.

Five years since he’s been a wolf. Black like his uncle, shorter fur, but his eyes…his are still bright blue.

“You’re a—” Robert stares at him, hand hesitatingly reaching out to pat his fur. “Oh, you’re like a wire brush.”

 _Oh, cheers_.

Aaron nudges him with his snout, muzzle rubbing along Robert’s forearm. The moss seems to run through Robert’s veins. Aaron wants to roll in it, he licks at the exposed skin of Robert’s wrist, bringing more blood rushing to the surface when Robert realises what he’s about to do.

“No!” Robert pulls his hand back, “No biting.”

Aaron sits and he whines.

“Jesus, Aaron, at least take me out for dinner.”

The sour notes of fear still cling to Robert, and Aaron itches to click and pop his bones, to settle himself completely into his wolf form. He noses at Robert’s legs, walking between them before he heads towards the barn door. He needs to be let out, and Robert does.

It settles in the back of his mind: _Robert helps_.

Aaron smells all the smells of the day; the sun like hot butter, the grass after it’s been mowed, water droplets on the river banks. He sets them all aside and he runs.

He runs and runs until the day passes into night and he finds himself at the cabin.

Aaron sees Growler who grumbles warningly at him, and Aaron barks back. He isn’t nasty or spiteful, so Growler backs off, curls back up into a ball and Aaron just lays on the porch with him, on his side, letting himself catch his breath from all his running.

 

 

 

 

 

He wakes up naked and human shaped.

There’s a car by the cabin, and the door is opening, Aaron gets up as fast as he can and stumbles a bit, his equilibrium off.

It’s Robert with a pile of clothes. His, so he must have gone to see his mum.

“Looks like we’re going to do this,” Robert tells him, “You and me.”

Aaron takes his clothes, warily, “Why?”

“Why? Because you found me.”

 _You found me too_.

“What—” Aaron tries to make his jaw work, words harder to form after not forming them, “What if we don’t work out?”

“What if I get hit by a bus?” Robert shrugs, “What if _you_ get hit by a bus?”

Aaron smiles, “I’d be fine. Wolf.”

“Show-off.” Robert smiles back. “My point is, we don’t know. But the universe knew enough to shove us together, and I…quite like you naked.”

Aaron looks down at his exposed _everything_. He bites his lip as he drops his clothes. Robert’s heart rate speeds up again. His fingers reach out and almost touch Aaron’s stomach, but not quite. Aaron lays his hand over Robert’s and makes him touch him.

“Are you sure?” Aaron asks him.

Robert nods, “Yeah. Somewhere, deep down, I know I need you, and since I already know I want you…”

“Okay.”

Robert puts on a sigh of relief, “Good because I hadn’t really planned on you saying no.”

Aaron is about to say his wolf wouldn’t have let him, but he realises he can’t feel his wolf.

No, it’s not that he can’t feel his wolf. He _is_ his wolf.

 

 

***

 

Aaron used to hate moon days. It reminded him of his angst and separation from himself. The self-imposed segregation of who he was from who he is, the life he mourned and the life he refused to begin. Now, he celebrates them. Changes in the day and runs with his pack of mutts and comes back to his cabin at night to spend them with his mate, lets Robert soothe the beast and tame the man. Funny because he has been neither with him.

They honour their sixth moon cycle with a blessing. They wear rings as is human tradition, and Aaron likes to play with the platinum against his skin – never silver. Robert likes to joke that Aaron will never be a cheap date, but he would never have bought something as pedestrian as _silver_ for his husband.

“We don’t have that word,” Aaron tells him as he plays with Robert’s ring, the pair of them laying in the moss.

“Husband?”

Aaron hums, “We’re mates.”

“I know.”

Mates is deeper than any marriage could convey, but Robert sighs and rolls on his belly, “Mates is your word for mine, right? That I belong to you.”

He nods, and Robert licks his lips, “Husband is what humans say when they want to say something is theirs. You chose me, and now we’re each others'. _Husbands_. We’re mates, yeah, but you’re also my husband. _Mine_.”

Aaron loves when Robert talks possessively of him, and his instincts heighten and he itches to take or be taken, accepting Robert’s kiss as a precursor. Only, it’s soft and gentle, filled with love.

 

 

Aaron also used to hate humans, until he fell in love with one. They cuddle and bed down under the moon, her pale light giving cool warmth to their time together and for the first time since he turned, Aaron forgives her.


	5. Culmination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 14\. **Asphyxiation** | ~~Cunnilingus | Distention | Tentacles~~
> 
> _“I’m not gay!” Robert shouts in his face._
> 
> _Aaron throws up his hands, “Well, you’re summat, Robert.”_
> 
> AU get together story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er, well, I had the idea for asphyxiation, but it sort of ended up as a D/s/asphyxiation/unhealthy coping mechanisms fic. What they have at the beginning of this story is broken, and I felt like I needed to tell that story.
> 
> So, that being said, there is mild choking in this fic, implied implied sexual abuse and other smaller problematic themes (implied drug use, prostitution).

It’s a culmination. Two stories, too similar and too different, but held together by a thread as thin as gossamer but held with the tensile strength of infinities.

 

 

 

 

Aaron learns to say the words: _I’m gay_.

For Robert, there’s never a word, a thing that sums him up in a way that doesn’t lodge inside his throat and never comes to _be_. He learns to hide it in identities that he puts on like clothes and in happiness that he pulls from a bottle.

 

 

 

“I’m not gay!” Robert shouts in his face.

Aaron throws up his hands, “Well, you’re summat, Robert.”

Robert wipes his mouth as he paces, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” Aaron puts on a frown, “’Cause I’m pretty sure it was you sucking my cock—”

Robert grabs him by his hoodie and shoves him up against the wall. They’re outside a bar that Aaron has pulled him out of. Shady shit going on in shady back rooms.

“Don’t let this be the thing that kills you, Robert.”

“You don’t—” Robert breathes heavily, face turned down as he shakes his head.

“Know? _I know_ ,” Aaron can’t keep the coldness out of his voice, but he’s there. He’s still there.

“It was so simple for you,” Robert looks up with watery eyes, his pupils blown, and Aaron begs that it’s from emotion and not drugs. That Robert hasn’t lost that much of himself.

“It wasn’t simple. It’s never simple to be who you are.”

Robert laughs, cruel and slow, “And that’s just it? I just…become who I am and all is forgiven?”

They both know that’s laughable, but Aaron isn’t willing to lose him, “It’s a start.”

“Stop trying to save me!” Robert begs, his fingers twist in the fabric and it hurts, and Aaron lets him.

Aaron wonders when was the last time someone was kind to Robert. He forces himself forward, shoving Robert’s hands off his shoulders and he pulls him into a hug, arms banded around his back so that he can’t shake Aaron off. He has to live, feel, breathe this hug whether he wants to or not.

Robert lets out one pained sob and then another. It’s the kind of crying that builds on itself, the steady and slow release of everything that has bound up and hurt him for so long. He can’t stop it, can’t control it, he just has to let it run its course until he has nothing left to give and he slumps on Aaron’s shoulders.

The whole time, Aaron holds him.

 

 

 

 

Aaron takes him back to his flat.

“Are you hurt?” He asks quietly as Robert takes off his coat. His small head shake says no. It’s also a lie. Aaron can see the fingerprints around Robert’s throat when he turns to slip his jacket off the settee like he doesn’t want it to dirty the fabric.

He knows Robert would want a coffee, so he makes him tea. The soft herbal kind that will make him sleep.

“We’ll try that again, shall we? Are you hurt?” Aaron presses more firmly.

Robert looks up at him from under blonde lashes, “They don’t hurt.”

“Jesus, Robert, you look like someone’s choked you out.”

Robert licks his lips and picks up his mug.

Aaron doesn’t like the tone of silence, “Did they?”

“I got caught up in something.”

“Something that made you lose consciousness?” Aaron takes a deep breath after he hears how demanding he sounds.

“I know you think I’m a victim. A whore. But I’m not,” Robert swallows and turns his mug handle to the other side. “I’ve never been touched like that.”

“Just because you asked for something doesn’t make it right.”

Robert settles himself back into the settee, “And you get to decide that? What I do with my body?”

Aaron knows Robert is trying to get his back up, and it’s working, but he tries to hold firm, “Not like you’re making any great leaps with it.”

“I shag who I want when I want. I’d consider that a pretty good run,” Robert spreads his legs a little wider. A power move. It might work on someone who hasn’t seen Robert pick his nose or fart after a bad curry.

“What you want is to come home,” Aaron doesn’t piss about. He lasers in on why Robert was so torn up when Aaron dragged him out. It took him weeks to find him this time. Part of him wonders if Robert thought Aaron had finally let him go. Left him alone like everyone else.

“Bullshit,” Robert still picks up and drinks his tea.

“Fine, there’s the door.”

They both know how to play this game. Robert wants out, he’ll go out the door. He always has before. He doesn’t move.

Aaron realises he doesn’t want his tea, so he goes to pour it down the sink.

“Aaron—”

“You want me to fuck you and make you feel better about yourself?” Aaron puts his hands on the counter and sighs, “Fit my hands over someone else’s marks and rewrite whatever lies they told you?”

Silence.

“What about what I want, Robert?”

He hears Robert get up, feet padding softly until he’s behind Aaron, not touching him, just hovering.

“You never think about anyone but yourself.”

Hands slip over his hipbones as Robert moulds himself around Aaron’s shoulders, his body covering his back.

“You’re not a whore,” Aaron admits, “But I am. Lying to myself that this is anything other than what it is.”

“Aaron.” It’s a soft whisper as he’s turned around. He watches Robert unzip his hoodie, pushing the sides away and his palms rubbing softly on his chest.

“C’mon then, Robert, pay me in how much you care.”

Aaron licks his lips and closes his eyes when Robert twists one of his nipples, his body hot as he leans away and kneels down.

Robert undoes just what he needs to get Aaron’s cock out, fingers wrapping around it as he sucks on the tip, Aaron’s hand curling at the back of his head to stop him pulling off completely before he bobs his head back over the shaft. It’s wet heat, deafening sounds in the quiet as Robert slurps and makes a mess of Aaron and himself. Only when Aaron is sure he needs it, he lets Robert off to take in big gulps of air and wipe his nose.

He slaps Robert’s cheek with two fingers as he tilts it to the side. They both know the script. They could do it in their sleep.

But Aaron changes it. He gets Robert up and pushes him so that he slams into the fridge with his hands up, belly pressed against it as Aaron shoves his hand down the back of his trousers. _Dry_. No one’s touched him.

“I told you—”

“Quiet,” Aaron cuts him off. He presses himself into Robert, his spit-slick cock staining the arse of Robert’s trousers as he rubs himself over him.

The relief in his chest expands into a shaky exhale. _No one’s touched him_.

Aaron pulls Robert back so that he’s leaning on him still as he turns them around and he nudges Robert up against the kitchen table. He puts one knee on it to steady himself, one leg still on the ground as Aaron strokes his belly and above his cock from behind.

“You’re in charge, Aaron.”

It’s like waving red in front of a bull. Aaron drags Robert’s hips back onto his as he’s pushing forward, rocking them together, clothes and all, as if they were fucking. Robert’s hand snakes around to hold the back of his head, pressing Aaron's face into the nook of his neck, and Aaron cups his palm over Robert’s covered cock and rubs it with hard fingers, getting him worked up so that when he fingers where his tip is, it’s moist.

Robert groans in unsteady, shaky whines, falling onto his hands when Aaron lets him go to grab the lube and a condom. He watches as Robert takes off his pants and trousers, nothing else before he puts his knee back on the table.

Aaron is rough with him. Rougher than he should be. Not just in manhandling him; not using as much lube as he should, spreading his fingers wider than necessary, chasing the burning hiss from between Robert’s teeth when Aaron’s fingers ride him too hard.

Still, he’s dribbling pre-come on Aaron’s kitchen table. Aaron slaps his cock up towards his belly and Robert quivers and folds on himself before getting back up.

“Dick,” Robert breathes.

Aaron smiles because Robert can’t see him as he slides latex over his shaft and soaks it with lube. It takes some readjusting, Robert’s head hanging between his shoulders as Aaron curls up on his toes as Robert pushes down, his voice one consistent moan that stops and starts with all that he feels.

Aaron uses what’s left on his palm to squelch it over the head of Robert’s cock as they roll their hips together, easing Aaron inside and letting Robert get used to being filled and stretched. When he’s sure Robert’s fine, Aaron puts his hands on Robert’s shoulders and he bucks himself forward to Robert’s shocked cry.

“More,” Robert asks immediately, and Aaron does it again, Robert wrapping his own fingers around his cock and stripping himself with slow and even strokes.

His hands skate over Robert’s back down to his hips, holding them tightly, “I thought I was in charge.”

Robert licks his lips and sighs, “You are.”

Aaron pulls his leg off the table, and them both back enough that Robert goes down on his chest on the table and he slides back and forth over the wood as Aaron starts to thrust in earnest.

Robert’s repetitive ‘ohs’ rest somewhere inside Aaron’s balls as they slap against Robert’s arse.

“It’s coming,” Robert warns him, and Aaron gets him up again, knees bent so that Robert isn’t that bit taller than him

Another warning from Robert, “It’s coming.”

He knows better than Robert does when his arse tightens and Aaron lines his fingers up where he knows the imprints to be on Robert’s throat and he digs in just enough to cut off Robert’s air. He holds for the count of ten and lets him go.

“ _Again_.”

Aaron waits longer this time. Until he knows that it’s it. Robert shakes, his moan soft as he looks down at his cock, giving up come over his fingers when Aaron presses his into his throat.

The ten count comes and Robert breathes like he’s floating on air, his body still twitching and pulsing, his hand moving faster than it has been and the come gets flung onto the table, the floor, and Robert’s belly with the speed in which his hand moves.

Robert has to let himself go, lie down on the table and Aaron pulls out of him, “Wait.”

Aaron hasn’t come yet.

“Why? This wasn’t about me.”

Robert flinches like he’s been slapped, and Aaron peels off the condom and drops it onto the floor. His job here is done.

 

 

 

 

Aaron took himself off to bed after, curling up on himself willing his erection away because there was no way he was touching himself after that. He never does.

He is surprised to see that Robert has made coffee and is making breakfast.

“What—?”

Robert swallows, uncomfortably, “You…you were right.”

“About what?” Aaron sits himself down and he notices Robert has cleaned up. No condom. No come.

“I’m selfish.”

A cup appears in front of him and it’s tea, just the way he likes it. The way Robert used to make it when they were a couple.

“I hurt you—” Robert takes a deep breath like it’s hard, “And you’re the last person I want to hurt.”

His voice trembles with emotion and Aaron is up like a shot. He always is. It’s his downfall every time.

“No, don’t.” Robert pushes him away.

Aaron feels lost because Robert’s never done that.

Robert nods, affirming something to himself, “You meant it? I could come home?”

Aaron thinks of other warm breakfasts, teas in bed, movie nights on the settee. Whole weekends where they made love in bed.

“ _Yeah_.”

Robert smiles, but his eyes are watery again, “I’m bisexual; I like both.”

Aaron smiles back at him, “Okay.”

“I love you, Aaron.” Robert wipes his eyes and tries to refocus on the eggs.

Aaron puts a hand on his shoulder, “I love you too. I never stopped.”

Robert looks at him like that must be a lie, but it’s the truth. Aaron met Robert when he was twenty-two, fell in love with him at twenty-three, lost him at twenty-four and is now only just getting him back at twenty-five. Aaron can love Robert across worlds, universes, constellations and infinities, but it means nothing if Robert can’t love himself. Can’t mend what he broke in his fear.

 

 

 

 

They cook and eat their eggs, bacon and beans on toast coming after. Robert gets distracted by Aaron’s warm kisses and his timings are completely off.

When Aaron takes him upstairs to the bedroom for clean clothes, he opens the side for Robert’s things in the wardrobe, things that he never touched, even after he left.

Robert bites his lip and wipes his face again.

“You see, I meant it,” Aaron takes his hand, “Being bi…it’s not the end of the world.”

In fact, it’s the beginning of a whole new one.


End file.
